The Status and Role of Women

Celebrating International Womens Day by Debra Strange

The History of International Womens Day

This was first celebrated on 19th March 1911 but is now celebrated every 8th March. Women join to celebrate the date that represents equality, justice,peace and development. International Womens Day is rooted in the struggle of women seeking to participate on an equal footing with men.

Who do we celebrate?
Women who have advanced the status of women e.g. suffrage, education and equality. Women who have shown humanitarian values. Women who have helped in war on the field or at home. All women and their rights to equality and fairness.

Women in the Middle Ages

Wealthy women looked after the estate if their husbands were away fighting. Some tradeswomen and widows had rights. Nuns were the only women to have an education. The majority of women - rich and poor- had no legal rights, owned nothing and were rarely educated.

Women in the Sixteenth Century

Elizabeth I ruled 1558-1603 she was respected for her intelligence and skill in politics. However women were thought of as less intelligent than men and once married any land or money became the property of their husbands. Poor women were valued for the work they did e.g. expected to share in the agricultural work with men. They were also often involved in trades such as brewing, baking and textiles.

Women in the Seventeenth Century

Upper class women started to learn to read and write and individuals like Aphra Behn and Mary Astell spoke out. Astell drew up plans for a womens college but it never went ahead. Aphra Behn was the first English woman to support herself through writing but her achievements were ridiculed. Women were denied a classical education and Latin was needed to succeed at this time.

The need for classics: Latin

One female traditional profession was nursing. No nurse or midwife could hope to become a doctor because Latin was the language of medicine. Elizabeth I had encouraged learning among the ladies at court but James I had a poor opinion of women. He would not allow his own daughter to study Latin. He said To make women learned and foxes tame had the same effect: to make them more cunning.

The English Civil War 1642-9

Women played an active role in times of turmoil and great change. They helped to defend homes and communities against attack. They had to learn to take over mens work and proved their worth. They became involved in political ideas and petitioned for release of political prisoners. From this time women writers had more work published. However after the war women were soon described as the weaker sex being seen as delicate and pure.

The Eighteenth Century

During the 18th century Britain started to become industrialised. Workshops developed and machinery was invented to speed up production. Society was becoming more urban than rural. Working class women were forced out into factories and single girls gained some independence but married women at home lost their chance to earn money. The idea of a family wage developed with the man being paid more as the main support of the family. Middle class women did not work at all - their interests were cut off from everything apart form the home and family. The result was women were regarded as being incapable of serious discussion or thought and so were protected from responsibilities such as voting or owning property.

Mary Wollstonecraft
She was the first woman to demand votes for women. 1792 her book entitled Vindication of the Rights of Women argued for equal education, and for single women to earn their own living. She fought hard for women even though she had much personal unhappiness. Unfortunately this led her to being criticised and her ideas dismissed by many, including women.

The Victorian Age Fashionable Ladies

Fashion was stifling, women were corseted and more covered up than they had been for centuries. Pale faces and delicate constitution were prized. Encouraged to be ladies of leisure. Meant to be gentle, obedient and the angel of the house. Single women were looked down upon and treated with contempt.

Working Women
Some women worked in mines, factories, mills and on the land doing dangerous jobs. In textiles mills they did the bulk of the work and were supervised by men who earned higher wages. Women were more strictly controlled with rules. At the end of a working day women had to do all the family work. Some worked in sweated labour at home.

Rich Victorian Women

Women in factories and mines

How Were Women Restricted?

Although rich women had an easier life they had a common denominator with poor women: they had no legal status. A married womans earnings belonged to her husband. Her property and goods all belonged to her husband. A woman could not vote. A woman could no go to university. She could not get a divorce on grounds of adultery (although her husband could). It was almost impossible to get a divorce at all until 1857. The law said that children had one parent, a father. He decided on their education and if a couple separated he could refuse to let the mother even see them.

Caroline Norton
Caroline had a brutal husband who accused
her of adultery. She was unable to defend herself in court as she had no legal status. Her husband took her children and also all her earnings (she was a writer). Caroline wrote on the Custody of Infants and had some effect: 1839 the bill said children under seven could stay with their mother if the courts agreed she had a good character. Caroline also wrote on making divorce laws fairer. Therefore she helped legal equality for women.

Barbara Bodichon
Barbara supported the Married Womens Property Bill in 1856. This resulted in an Acts of Parliament allowing women living with husbands or those separated to keep their own earnings By 1882 women could own their own property and give it to whoever she wished.

Voting: arguments used against women

Women are incapable of rational thought. Women are physically too frail and weak to take on the burden of decision. Women are incapacitated by frequent childbearing to bother to vote. Men will make the right decisions for them. If women have the vote they will upset the current order and cause unpleasant changes.

Winning the Vote

1897 local groups working for womens voted joined into the National Union of Womens Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). They were led by Millicent Fawcett. 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst formed the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU). Support grew rapidly - they picketed ministers houses, lobbied MPs and interrupted meetings. After 1909 the WSPU stepped up pressure and used more violence. Some women started hunger striking and the government decided they should be force fed 1913 they used another plan - the Cat and Mouse Act. This meant they released starving women and then arrested them again when they were well. During World War One suffragettes turned their energy to getting women to help the war effort. Women started to get praise for their war work and the Daily Mail supported their claim for the vote. In 1928 women at last got the vote on equal terms with men. Women at last had a voice in the way the country was governed.

Emmeline Pankhurst and the WSPU

Deeds not words was the famous motto of the WSPU. She campaigned all her life to improve the rights of women. Often went to jail as a result of the Cat and Mouse Act.

The National Union of Womens Suffrage

Millicent Fawcett

The Cat and Mouse Act

The Right to Education Right to education gradually improved over the 19th century. Frances Buss and Dorothea Beale set up colleges where girls could be prepared for university education and for the professions. 1860 Florence Nightingale set up her Nursing School. 1876 a law was passed which allowed medical schools to admit women as students to train as doctors. Emily Davies worked to get teacher training for women By the end of the century different job opportunities arose with secretarial work and work in department stores.

Women involved in War

Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole: services to nursing in the 19th century. Mabel Stobart and the Womens National Service League (led nursing groups in Serbia in 1912) Elsie Ingells and her womens team in the front line in World War One WWI resistance group the White Lady Group Nurse Edith Cavells bravery helping wounded soldiers (executed for her actions) Special Operations Executive in WWII - women behind the lines. Women and the Home Front:duties in both World Wars working with munitions, in civil defence, land army etc. Medecins Sans Frontieres -a group who provide humanitarian aid in war zones.

Medecins Sans Frontieres

An international humanitarian aid organisation providing emergency medical aid in more than 80 countries. They work in dangerous conditions rising their lives.

Florence Nightingale
Worked as a nurse in the Crimean and drastically reduced the death rate. Introduced nursing as a profession and started a nursing school. Involved in improving military hospitals Used health statistics effectively Hospital planning Community nursing.

Mary Seacole
A nurse who used herbs and natural remedies. Self funded to go to the Crimean and nurse soldiers on the battlefield a true field nurse attending the wounded on the front line Sometimes called the forgotten Nightingale.

Women in WWI and WWII

Munitions factory

Other women of note

Here are a few women who have made a valuable contribution to our world today. There are many areas to consider including health and education, the environment, political reform and charities.

Mother Theresa
A Catholic nun who devoted her life to caring for the poor and sick in Calcutta, India. She was revered as a living saint for her work and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Marie Curie
She won two Nobel prizes for her work in science. Discovered radium with her husband Pierre In WWI she equipped ambulances with mobile X ray units and drove them to the front lines Her work helped X rays in surgery Her research led to treatment of cancer by radiation.

Elizabeth Fry
Looked at prison reform at in the 19th century. Ensured children got fed and clothed and had some schooling. Improved conditions for all. Started a nursing course the sisters of Mercy(influenced Nightingale)

The world today

Women have made Your task now. huge advances in Come up with some equality especially heroines of your own over the last one and produce a mini hundred years. PowerPoint on why Consider the history or they should be women and how far remembered on we have come. International womens Day.